


Alistair Theirin

by oOAchilliaOo



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 02:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18512128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oOAchilliaOo/pseuds/oOAchilliaOo
Summary: He’d never been allowed to think of himself as Alistair Theirin. Mostly because he was never supposed to think of himself as a 'Theirin', which was fine because he’d never particularly wanted to. But tomorrow he could all but be made king, so he supposes he ought to at least be capable of pretending to be one. But it’s not so easy as that. All he really wants to do is run, which obviously he can’t do… or maybe he can, just for little while…





	Alistair Theirin

_Theirin_

_Alistair Theirin_

“I am Alistair Theirin,” he said to the ceiling, trying to sound as if he accepted that, as if he were comfortable with it. But he heard it in his own voice, the unintentional venom as he spat out the name ‘Theirin’. A name that had defined his past and threatened to change his future.

It didn’t work, no matter how many times he told himself who he was; he didn’t  _feel_ like a Theirin. More familiar was the ‘Alistair’ or even, while he lived with Arl Eamon, ‘boy’ or, in his moments of lesser grandeur at the Chantry ‘oi you’. He couldn’t help but feel that any of those names, even Morrigan’s annoying habit of addressing him only as ‘fool’ felt far more welcome than Theirin.  He had never  _ever_ thought of himself as a Theirin, he had never been allowed to. In fact, it had been actively discouraged. And now... well, ever since the Arl had (rather offhandedly) referred to him as such, he hadn’t been able to expel the thought from his head.

After tomorrow… he could be  _king._

“I am Alistair Theirin,” he repeated, striving once again to sound certain of that. It still didn’t work.

Groaning, he rolled over onto his stomach, burying his face into the pillow. Maker help him, he wanted to run, just  _run,_ leave it all behind him and  _run_. He wouldn’t, of course, he couldn’t really. He’d taken an oath to stop the Blight and if becoming king was the only way to do it, he’d do it. He owed his brothers that much. But even so, he’d only been half-kidding when he’d suggested running away to Orlais and living in sin.

If  _only_  they could.

He felt her before he heard her, that slight stirring in his blood that signalled the presence of another Warden. A few seconds later, he heard the latch on the door lift and the soft swish of her robe as she entered the room.

“Are you okay?” she questioned softly.

“No,” he replied simply, his voice muffled somewhat by the pillow.

She let out a small, barely audible, huff of laughter. “Me neither.”

The murmured words hardly reached his ears but their meaning pierced his heart.  _She was afraid too._ He wondered why he hadn’t realised that before, that the prospect of tomorrow’s decision, whatever that might be, was as terrifying for her as it was for him, and if she was afraid, then it was okay to be afraid, wasn’t it? If Elissa, brilliant, beautiful, strong Elissa could fear something, then that something must be something  _worth_ being afraid  _over_.

It was okay to be afraid.

It was okay to want to run.

He heaved himself up off his stomach, scooting to the end of the bed in order to look at her. She’d remained against the closed door, eyes firmly fixed on the floor as she chewed her bottom lip, a pose she often adopted when she was deep in thought. After a moment or two, she looked up to meet his gaze, offering him a small smile. He continued searching her face, her eyes especially, trying find the evidence that she felt the same as he did.

“Right,” he said, the moment he found it, “I’ve had enough of this, come on.”

With a renewed sense of purpose he rose and crossed the room to the place he’d thrown his pack when they’d first taken up residence in Arl Eamon’s estate. With one heave, he lifted it onto his shoulder, then with his other hand, he seized his sword and slotted it easily into the sheath still attached to the back of his linen shirt.

“Alistair...”

He spun around, catching her eyes with his own and allowing all the sorrow and heartbreak he had been trying to hide to finally show in his expression. She fell silent. He cast around for the words to frame his thoughts and found none.

“Just... please,” he managed eventually.

She nodded.

One foot in front of the other. It was easy really. One foot in front of the other, eyes on the road and only a vague awareness of her position relative to his. It was no different that the state of mind he put himself in during battle, limiting his conscious thought to his breathing, his direction, his strength, his blade, his comrades and the enemy. He forced himself into that state now, one foot in front of the other. He knew she trailed behind him, shouldering her own pack, probably with an expression of amused confusion plastered across her beautiful features. It occurred to him that he really hadn’t explained anything at all, hadn’t been able to translate his thoughts into words. Had merely ordered her to get her pack and had started walking.

Ordered her. Huh. Maybe he would make a king after all…

But no, down that path lay only melancholy and madness.

One foot in front of the other and that was all.

Eventually, she broke the silence.

“We shouldn’t go too much further,” she said quietly, as if she were afraid that if she spoke too loudly or too harshly then something within him would break. Whether she thought that that would be his rage or his grief, he couldn’t say. But he wasn’t going to break, he just needed  _out_.

He nodded in reply and raised his eyes to the surrounding countryside. To their right was a small hillock; if they went the other side of it they’d be well enough hidden from the road. He turned to glance behind him, making sure, but even if he strained his eyes the lights of Denerim could no longer be seen. As he turned back he met her gaze. She nodded and smiled in answer to his unspoken question and together they made their way towards the hillock.

Their movements were practised, automatic, a dance choreographed over almost a year of making camp together. He gathered some of the wood that lay thereabouts, she pitched the tent, he gathered the packs together and she draped one of the bedrolls over them, he lit the fire. Then they sat, side by side, backs propped against their packs, facing the fire.

He didn’t dare let his circle of awareness grow, but instead forced himself to stay in battle state; nothing but the flickering of the fire, the beating of his heart, and the sound of her breathing beside him. The darkness and the silence provided the perfect blanket, effectively shielding him from tomorrow and the day after and the future and the past. He couldn’t bring himself to break it, not yet.

She must have thought differently. His strange mood perhaps too unusual, the silence perhaps too much to take.

“Alistair…” she murmured and, as simple as that, the spell was broken.

The thought of tomorrow rose in his mind with all its possibilities and implications. The archdemon once again made its presence known, roaring in his mind. The list of everything they still had to accomplish together flew through his head, the deeds lining up in his mind, each one with a thousand terrifying outcomes all clamouring to be heard.

He would surely go mad if he listened to them now.

“Don’t,” he begged, leaning against her just a little more. “Let’s just…  _pretend_ , just for tonight, that we’re not us, that we’re… we’re, oh I don’t know, a simple farmer’s boy and his girl sneaking out of the village to be together, and… and the question of succession and the Blight are someone else’s problem. Someone far, far away from us and tonight, all that matters is that we’re together and that we love each other and that’s… that’s all…”

He trailed off lamely, aware that it sounded stupid even as he said it. Certainly, in a second she would laugh at him and demand they go back to Denerim.

Perhaps she saw the desperation in his eyes, or heard it in his voice, or perhaps she needed this just as much as he did because instead, she simply shifted closer and draped his arm around her shoulders.

“I’ll be a ruined woman after tonight then.” She curled herself into his chest and he tightened his arm about her.

“First thing tomorrow, I’ll go to your Father and ask his permission to marry you,” he promised, smiling for the first time in what felt like years.

“He might take some convincing,” she chuckled. “After all, our farm is far superior to yours.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh it is, is it?”

She snorted. “Of course it is.”

He grinned; with each exchange he felt tomorrow slipping further and further away from him. “Ah but what you don’t know is that our family is planning on buying the plot of land next to our farm, making ours twice the size of yours.”

She laughed then, a full warm hearted happy laugh, the like of which he hadn’t heard from her since before they arrived in Denerim. “Oh? Well that should be fine then.”

He didn’t know what to say to that and they lapsed into silence again. This time though the silence was no longer a shield but a gaping hole threatening to fill itself with kings, and darkspawn and archdemons, destroying the fantasy they had only just concocted.

She must have felt it too.

“Tell me what happens after we’re married.”

He barely needed to think about it.

“Well you’ll have to move into my parents’ house, of course, until we buy the extra land and I build us a home of our own. My mother will be awful to you, because all mothers-in-law are terrible and I won’t know how to stick up for you.”

“I  _can_ stick up for myself you know,” she interrupted, chuckling again.

“Except that you won’t, because you’ll be  _sooo_  grateful to her for letting you marry me.”

“I’ll be  _that_ grateful, will I?” She grinned up at him.

He smiled and then contrived to look as shocked as he possibly could. “Naturally. I’m  _quite_ the catch you know.” He winked at her.

She leaned up then and kissed him on the nose. “Fool,” she whispered. 

He grinned, but before he could close the distance between his lips and hers, she moved and settled against his chest once more.

“Go on.”

“It won’t be so bad anyway,” he continued, complying with her wishes as always, “because at night I’ll hold you, and tell you how I love you and all the men in the village will laugh at me for being so utterly besotted with my wife.”

“That’s true.” she murmured.

He nodded his agreement, resting his head on top of hers. This time she didn’t give the silence a chance.

“When you’ve built this house,” she began. “What happens then?”

“Well, the house will be on our very own plot and I’ll build it out of wood cut and gathered from the nearby woodland. I’ll make it perfect for you, kitchen, living quarters, four bedrooms...”

“Why on  _earth_ would we need that many bedrooms?” she interrupted, pushing herself off him and turning to face him.

He shrugged. “For the four children we’re going to have.”

“Then, wouldn’t we need five rooms?”

“The twins can share.”

“Twins?”

“Yes.”

She laughed and shook her head, settling herself against him again. “I think you mean two children,” she said, “and three bedrooms.”

“Three children?” he bargained.

“Two,” she said firmly.

“Two and a half?”

“How can you have half a child?”  she snorted.

He laughed. “I’m not sure, but I hear that it’s the average.”

She chuckled again and curled herself impossibly closer. “Two.”

“Two,” he agreed. “A boy and a girl and their names are…”

He hesitated. It was true that sometimes in his dreams he concocted this life for them, only they remained Grey Wardens and had glorious adventures before settling down. Yet, he always married her and they were always surrounded by their children and in  _those_ dreams the boy had been named Duncan and the girl had been named Eleanor. But it somehow felt wrong to name  _these_ fictional children that. It brought the fantasy too close to the real world, too close to breaking point.

“Jimmy-Billy-Bob,” he said eventually, “and Ethel.”

She managed not to laugh, but he felt her shaking with the strain of it.

“Those are truly terrible names.”

“I’ll have you know that Jimmy-Billy-Bob is my father’s name, and I don’t think he’d appreciate it being called terrible.”

She clearly couldn’t help herself laughing then.

“I’ll apologise to him first thing in the morning,” she promised when her laughter had abated, “while you’re asking mine for permission to marry.”

He brought both his arms around her then holding her as close as he could, wishing desperately that this night and this fantasy could last forever.

“Do you think he’ll say yes?” he murmured into her hair.

“Of course he will.” She turned her head to face him. “You’re a catch, aren’t you?” she added, grinning.

He kissed her then, because how could he not? She was beautiful and charming and willing to put up with his stupid little fantasy because… well, he wasn’t sure  _why_  actually, but he was damn grateful all the same.

He tried to pour that gratefulness into his kiss, tried to be certain that she  _felt_ it. That she felt every part of his love and admiration to the deepest possible extent because he was suddenly and horrifically aware that tonight might be very the last night that he got to  _show_ her.

So he kissed her again, and again and again, until they were struggling to clamber into the tent, limbs intertwined, almost tripping over the canvas, clothing half off.

If this was the last night he got to love her then, by the Maker, he was determined to  _love her._

In the morning, he was awoken by the feeling of a pillow thwacking him firmly in the face followed by a soft chuckle at his presumably confused expression.

He tried to ignore the fact that said chuckle was quieter, more subdued than usual, but in the cold light of day such things were harder to ignore.

“We should go,” she murmured, nodding to where the first light of dawn was just creeping over the hill and into their little sanctuary.

“Yeah.” He noted with a pang that she was already dressed, that her things were already packed. “I guess… so.”

She only nodded before sliding out of the tent, leaving him to dress and pack.

When he emerged, they broke camp much the same way they made it, with practiced movements born of familiarity.

He tried not to think about how it might be the last time they  _ever_  broke camp.

Their walk back to Denerim was silent, her steps quick, almost hurried, probably because she was too busy thinking about what was to come, going over all their evidence, thinking of what to say to the landsmeet.

By contrast, he could only trail behind her, dread and guilt pouring through him.

He should have told her. Last night, he should have told her why he was really afraid. Why he  _really_  didn’t want to be king.

In truth it had nothing to do with the responsibility, or the fact that he disliked being a Theirin.

Instead, it had everything to do with the fact that he knew,  _knew,_  two Grey Wardens couldn’t bear a child together. That all their dreams of a house full of children would only ever be dreams. That,  _together_ , they couldn’t give the kingdom the heir that it needed to stop this mess from happening all over again.

After today, he might be King… but he knew she couldn’t be his Queen.

As much as he might want her to be. As much as  _she_ might want to be.

He should have told her.

He  _really_  should have told her.  


End file.
